You just know that wellness programming ROI is there. Keeping your people healthy has just got to pay off. Well, after 25 years of looking for what you know has got to be there, it's time to stop wasting time and money and start to focus on the purpose of a wellness program.The purpose of wellness efforts should be to foster better health, not to spend money on programs that may be a distraction from the work at hand. To change corporate culture requires humility, leadership, creativity and persistence. That's because a company's culture is the very root of what a company is. If you can affect your company's culture, those shared attitudes values and goals, you have helped to define what it means to be an employee of your company. Given that culture is one of the building blocks of the employment relationship, companies need to act on the fact that nothing new that is this important will happen (or happen for long) unless it starts from and is sustained by those at the top. Creating a Culture of Wellness can't be an HR strategy. It's got to be a business strategy, executed by line management -- starting with the CEO and the rest of the C-Suite. Frequently, what's good for Google is good for the rest of us.In a recent ad, Google told the world that “At Google, we don't shy away from big, crazy ideas--and that's not just in our products. We aim to foster the healthiest workforce on the planet . . . .” And that is how you can start, with a stated wellness goal that is linked to the business. What happens thereafter depends on the people who set the pace and the norms in your company. Your line leadership is made up of smart, goal-oriented people. Give them a business goal that is part of their performance incentive plan and they will quickly figure out what it will take to achieve that goal.You may have a multi-location company. Each location is different. So, there will be many different ways your Wellness Culture will begin to unfold. Maybe the only thing that will be the same everywhere is the goal, “the healthiest workforce on the planet.” Your corporate office can serve as a resource center. It can offer line managers ideas and assistance, like offering healthier food in your cafeterias, or arranging for fitness center discounts, or maybe even classes on how line managers can be effective and not create a lot of stress at the same time. One resource you should consider promoting to your line managers is the Blue Zones Power 9 guidelines that can improve and extend our lives. What you will see is a set of simple but powerful, evidence-based behaviors that can make a huge difference in everybody's health and well being. Gradually, if the line “walks the talk,” everybody gets the message, and they then buy in. This may be slow. But only by becoming part of your company's “air and water” will wellness be achieved and sustained. What I am advocating is not any vendor's elaborate and expensive wellness program. It is the influence of line leadership in your company. The idea is to inject wellness into your company's bloodstream, like we did with safety years ago. Start at the top, make it business, make it bonus-able and lead by example.

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